


I used to be an adventurer like you, then I took an arrow...

by anxioussailorsoldier



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Blood and Injury, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 12:10:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18073163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anxioussailorsoldier/pseuds/anxioussailorsoldier
Summary: Link gets shot.





	I used to be an adventurer like you, then I took an arrow...

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a silly idea I got from thinking about the different ways you can heal Link in the game! Posted a year ago on tumblr and finally figured I should migrate it here. The Sidlink is implied but not explicit. Get ready for secondhand embarrassment.

The Moblins were only marginally better at aiming with their bows than the Bokoblins, and neither were a match for the Zora soldiers who leapt from the water with deadly grace. It was a small camp, and even if Link and Sidon’s troupe hadn’t outnumbered the enemy, a victorious outcome was inevitable. Link didn’t bother to draw his sword, content with using his bow to pick off any enemies that scurried too far from the battle. Sidon was in the middle of it all, unable to help himself, and Link tried to keep an eye on him. Worryingly, it seemed the prince was just as reckless as he was.

Sidon executed a spinning move that Link had seen him practising for far too long in the barracks, his spear coming around his body in one smooth thrust and piercing the chest of a Moblin. The prince was still standing in a guarded pose when a puff of dark purple and black smoke on the end of his spear signalled his success, and a look of surprised delight spread over his face.

“Link!” Sidon called, looking around wildly for his friend, the stupid grin still plastered to his face.

“Yes, I saw!” Link laughed, letting another arrow fly into the snout of a terrified Bokoblin, mainly to stop the high-pitched screeching noises it was making.

The scattered remains of the creatures littered the camp, and as the Zora royal guard finished off the Bokoblins with unnerving efficiency, Link took the opportunity to shove as many horns and guts as he could into his pack. Scavenging wasn’t the prettiest way to make a few rupees, but he didn’t mind getting his hands dirty.

_Thwap._

An arrow buried itself in the back of his upper thigh, and Link reacted immediately, turning on the spot and firing off his own shot in retaliation even as he fell to the ground. He didn’t even get a proper look at what had managed to land a hit on him before it erupted into a puff of smoke.

Pain bloomed up and down his leg and all the muscles cramped as Link hissed, groping for the arrow shaft while searching through his bag for a potion that might restore his health and pride. He glanced up at the Zoras; they were pulling monster parts from the river and miraculously didn’t appear to have noticed his predicament- for now.

His fingers closed around the arrow, and he took a single deep breath before yanking it from the red and angry flesh. He managed to keep quiet, but his eyes streamed and his jaw ached with how hard he was gnashing his teeth together. Link’s bloodied fingers finally found the bottle of fairy magic that he’d been searching for, and he chugged it down just as Sidon sidled over to him.

“What an invigorating way to start the day, don’t you say?” The prince beamed down at him, thankfully not noticing that anything at all was amiss. Link sent Hylia a quick thankyou as he nodded, wiping at his mouth and enjoying the buzz of pain relief that elixirs always gave him. Sidon cocked his head, suddenly curious. “What’s that you have there?”  

The Zoras didn’t use healing potions like the Hylians, Link reminded himself. “Just a drink,” He said, shrugging, and smiled up at his friend, hoping his face was dry. “I would share it with you, but that was my last one, sorry.” He got to his feet to follow the prince back to the group, when a sharp pain flared up, in the exact location he’d been hit with the arrow. Link paused, waiting until he was certain Sidon was preoccupied with talking to his officers, then reached a hand down to the back of his pants. The skin was smooth, as if the wound had never existed, as was normal after a healing draught. But…why was there still pain? Was it just temporary, a phantom effect?

He took a step and it was like being stabbed. Had it been a special kind of arrow? He hadn’t heard of lingering effects like this though.

Maybe the potion had been bad?

Another step, another knife to the sensitive flesh where his leg met his torso. This wasn’t something he could ignore, but he hadn’t lied when he’d told Sidon it was his last elixir.

“Link! We still have much ground to cover today. Let’s move out,” Sidon called cheerfully, turning on his heel, giving a hand signal to his troops that had them marching ahead of him.

Cursing himself for his stupidity in getting shot in the first place, Link limped after them, grimacing all the way.

* * *

By the time Sidon called for a halt, Link couldn’t feel his leg anymore. Instead it was like he was trying to put weight on a pole that had impaled itself into his cheek, and even the oblivious Sidon had asked once or twice if something was bothering him. He’d eaten much of the ingredients in his pack to use all their various healing properties, but the stabbing pain persisted, and the Zoras looked scared to offer him dinner as if he might inhale the entire net of fish.

Excusing himself from the camp, he wandered into the surrounding forest, only going as far as necessary to ensure some shred of privacy. He unceremoniously dropped his pants and kneeled on the ground, and steeled himself to touch his aching backside. It was as before- the skin was healed, though extremely hot. He forced himself to prod further, trying to figure out the source of the pain if it wasn’t a gaping wound. It wasn’t like he had any bones to break there.

Link pressed his palm flat against the area and gasped, the light pressure creating more of the same agony he’d been feeling all day. Experimentally, he tried pressing from different sides of the area, thinking that it was like sitting on a large, invisible thumb tack.

Oh.  _Oh._

He was an idiot. A careless, stupid idiot.

If it wasn’t so embarrassing, he’d just go ask Sidon- no, that was out of the question. But…he  _did_  need assistance.  

Link bit his lip.  

* * *

“Link! There you are. My friend, I was hoping there would be a chance to talk to you this evening. I-”

Sidon was cut off as Link dragged him into the one and only tent set up at the camp for the prince. Straightening once they were alone, Sidon simply looked at Link, waiting patiently for whatever the Hylian needed to get off his chest. He waited a bit longer. And a bit longer still. Link refused to speak, but his face was becoming a marvellous shade of red that reminded the prince of a Hylian shroom.

“Link-”

“I need your help,” The smaller man said in a rush. Sidon nodded, uncertain, but entirely willing to do anything in his power to assist the Champion.

“I am, of course, at your disposal. Tell me, what do you require?”

There was another awkwardly long silence, broken only when Sidon cleared his throat. Link took a breath, looking everywhere in the tent except at the Zora towering over him.

“There’s a- there’s an arrow.”

“An arrow?”

“Yes.”

“Where is this arrow? Do we need to find it? What is it for?” Sidon pressed, his eyes sparking at the hint of an important mission. Link shook his head madly.

“No, I, uh, I know where it is. Well, where the arrow head is.”

Sidon narrowed his eyes in confusion, but said nothing more, as Link struggled to speak.

“It’s…in me.”

A blank look in response.

“What?”

“There’s an arrow head, in…me. I need to get it out.”

“What? Where?”

Link’s barely bridled frustration and humiliation manifested in the pitch of his voice, which was now several octaves higher than usual. “I- uhm,” He squeaked, and with one hand gestured roughly at his backside. He was thoroughly regretting this course of action. Maybe he could still warp to a village and wake a healer?

“That’s why you’ve been acting strangely all day,” Sidon realised, a tad slow on the uptake. “Oh, Link, I am sorry I did not realise–”

“It’s fine! It’s fine! I just- I must have only broken off the arrow shaft instead of getting the whole thing out!” Link babbled, “And then I drank that potion which healed everything around the arrow head and sealed it in! So I have been effectively ripping myself a new one with every step I’ve taken since we left Lake Hylia!” He smiled manically, his pointer teeth glinting in the low light of the tent.

Sidon’s cheeks turned an interesting purple colour, and he seemed at a loss for words. While Link was deliberating if it would be less embarrassing if he left now and tried to injure himself so badly that Mipha’s grace would erase all wounds and indeed, all arrow heads from his body, Sidon piped up softly.

“What do you want me to do?”

* * *

The purple stain on Sidon’s cheeks had only become more vibrant and moved progressively down his face.

“Please forgive me, Link, but- due to the potion you took, I think, I don’t…I don’t see anything, um, this all looks quite…uh, like a perfectly fine, uh…behind.”

The matching blush on Link’s face had spread everywhere, so that the bared flesh of his ass was a glowing pink. Sidon was conflicted; he wanted to spare his friend from as much embarrassment as possible, but obviously he was required to observe the area to remove the offending arrowhead. So, it was in his duty to look at every inch of the firm Hylian bottom that was in his lap. It was, oddly enough, the only part of Link that Sidon had seen that wasn’t littered in scars. Link, arranged over Sidon’s crossed legs, squirmed, having been too mortified to speak since Sidon suggested his idea. One arm pried itself from its place hiding the Champion’s head, to jab at a point on the lower right cheek.

“Ah,” Sidon said in thanks, but didn’t move. He exhaled, trying to think straight. This was his friend, who was in pain, and Sidon needed to be sensitive. “I’m going to see if I can, uh, feel it. Is that ok?” He received a sharp nod in immediate reply, that sent blonde hair flopping over Link’s arms. The message being, get it over with. He swore quietly, and finally brought his hands down to rest lightly on the reddened skin.

Link’s whole body tensed, which had an interesting effect on the muscles under Sidon’s hands, that he refused to think about. Trying to keep his pointed nails out of the way, he traced his fingers down the curve of Link’s rear, pretending not to notice how much they were both shaking. He reached the crease at the top of Link’s thigh, and the small man suddenly grunted.

“Here?”

Another grunt. Sidon supposed that meant yes. He tentatively pressed down, eliciting a yelp of pain, and found what he was looking for- a hard edge under the skin, where there should only be softness. Keeping one hand at the location of the arrow head, he reached over Link to fetch the small knife he’d sterilised.

“Have you got the potion?” He asked, trying to sound like a professional medic instead of a very flustered and nervous prince. Link grunted again, impatient, because they both knew that he was tightly gripping the bottle of liquid magic he’d made in a hurry with the communal cooking pot. It was undoubtedly fish flavoured.

“Right, well then. I’ll give the word.” Every instinct screamed at Sidon how wrong it was to be putting a dagger to his friend. He willed his hands to stop shaking, and tightly gripped Link so he could draw a deep line with the knife alongside the arrow head. Link drew one ragged breath and held it, stilling underneath Sidon’s touch. Blood welled immediately from the cut, dripping down Link’s thigh, the metallic scent filling Sidon’s nostrils in an unexpected headrush. He couldn’t see anything in the open wound he’d created, there was so much blood.

“I apologise for this,” He said, before digging his clawed thumb and forefinger into the gash.

“ _Fuck!_ ” Link shouted, twisting in pain, his lower half held still by Sidon’s other hand. “What the  _fuck_  are you doing?”

“What you asked,” Sidon growled in reply, trying to feel for the sharp, hard edge of the arrow head. The next time Link asked him for a favour, he’d be sure to ascertain what would be involved before agreeing. He felt like he might pass out from stress; he hated to think how Link was feeling.

His fingers finally closed around the jagged metal, and Link’s pained moans reached a crescendo as Sidon ripped it from its fleshy prison.

“Drink!”

Sidon wasn’t sure if Link heard the order, as he didn’t respond for a few moments, just gasping against Sidon’s legs. But when the prince leaned down to check to see if he was conscious, Link raised the glass bottle to his lips with a shaking hand, downing the fowl-smelling liquid in one gulp. Sidon watched in amazement as the skin under his hand stitched itself together seamlessly, leaving nothing but a pale pink line, the only blemish on an otherwise flawless backside. Sidon patted it absently.

Neither of them moved for a few minutes, Link catching his breath, Sidon studying a pattern of pale freckles on Link’s thighs. How could he get freckles there? Did he sunbathe unclothed?

“Thanks,” Link finally said, his voice hoarse. He rolled off Sidon’s legs, clutching his pants and hiking them back up to his waist.

“Anytime,” Sidon replied automatically, then blanched at the idea of ever having to do anything like that to his friend ever again.

Link buckled the last strap, nodded without looking at the prince, and promptly vanished from the tent. Sidon released a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding, and looked down at his bloodied hands. It was shameful how much he wanted to lick the red off his fingers, like an animal. He wondered if Link would ever look him in the eye again after tonight. 

“I do believe that was the most I’ve heard Master Link say,” Bazz’s amused voice came from just outside the tent. It was a startling and deeply embarrassing reminder to Sidon that there had been a guard well within hearing range of the entire ordeal.

“…or moan, rather.”


End file.
